A court in Jyväskylä has sentenced 37-year-old Mikko Eschner to 11 years and six months in prison for manslaughter in the so-called sports bag killing in January this year.
His accomplice, Jari Porrassalmi, got five years and six months for attempted manslaughter, aggravated assault and battery, and ordinary assault and battery.
The victim was a 25-year-old woman from Lahti. The killing was seen to be revenge for leaking information to the police about the activities of a member of a criminal gang.
The court found that Porrassalmi had beaten the woman in December 2010, and that Eschner killed her with drugs in January 2011.
The woman was killed in an apartment in the Pupuhuhta district of Jyväskylä. Eschner was at home at the time on parole for a previous homicide.
The time left over from the parole was added to Eschner’s sentence, and he will have to serve the full time.
It took a long time for the victim to die, and about ten people came to the apartment while the process was going on.
A 20-year-old man packed the body into an ice hockey bag and drove it to a forest road, where he left it. It was later found by a passer-by.
The wife of the main perpetrator was given a four-month suspended sentence for neglect and involuntary manslaughter.
Three of those who visited the apartment were found guilty of failing to alert help.
The prosecution had called for sentences for murder, and plan to appeal to the Vaasa Court of Appeals.
